Yesterday I covered the community blog, today, the blogging community. What’s the difference? In short, while a community blog is often a single blog with multiple authors, a blogging community is multiple blogs combined into one site.
Usually when you have a single community blog, there is a fair amount of editorial control. Someone often acts as a gatekeeper and while you can have a large number of authors, the posts are usually coordinated. A blogging community is a bit more chaotic. There is usually a large number of posters but when a blogger posts, and what they post about, is often completely up to the individual blogger. Blogging communities can be organized around a specific online or offline community (like a university or town). They can also be organized around a general topic, like today’s example, Scientific Blogging (Science 2.0).
From the Scientific Blogging About page:
We created a place where everyone who wants to write about science can write to a large potential audience, regardless of popularity. There are other places where scientists can write but writers are lost in a sea of 170 million random blogs. Everyone in the audience is here to read about science and we have 1,800,000 articles read per month so your audience is already here. You can just write good articles and have fun and engage people.
Scientific Blogging works like a number of blogs of this ilk. There are general guidelines, listed on the about page, and some basic moderation but the community is open to anyone wanting to write about Science. Just sign up for an account and you are ready to go. If you’re a particularly good blogger, you may find your way into the featured article section of the page. If you’re not, well, you still get published.
There is a power in blogging communities. By sharing an audience it’s easier to grow that audience since every blogger tends to do at least a little advertising and bring in at least a few readers. It also takes away some of the posting pressure you have when authoring a blog on your own. Blogging communities also convert nicely into social networks, and vice versa.
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